The Diagnosis of Chest Disease

Abstract

This is not an article on the latest means available for the diagnosis of chest diseases, but simply a consideration of history taking and of signs and symptoms. Medicine is without meaning unless we think in terms of patients. It is by developing our powers of observation and interpretation while we are in contact with our patients that we learn medicine, rather than from books and articles.

Hippocrates is our great master of the art of inspection-he stands for the fundamental importance of seeing clearly. To-day if we read his reports of 2,400 years ago we can often make an almost instantaneous diagnosis. Descriptions which cannot be bettered are the squeaking of leather for a pleural friction rub, or the boiling inside the chest of pulmonary oedema. In the time of Hippocrates as much as now thoroughness in examination produces more correct diagnoses than sudden flashes of brilliance.